The All-Star Antes Up
Page 57

“Yeah, plus being envious.” The navy silk of his shirt stretched over the flexing bulge of his shoulder muscles as he shrugged slightly. “I’m not complaining, but everyone sees the trappings. No one sees the things I gave up to get them.”
She thought she understood. “Focus of desire. You have to strip away everything else because you can’t afford to take your eye off the goal. You set the bar so high that it requires total commitment.”
“Funny thing is, I don’t remember setting the bar. It was just there.”
“Because of who you are.” She sighed. “I don’t get why there’s a problem. We’re not hurting anyone else by pursuing our own passions.”
“They compare themselves to us and don’t like what they see.”
“When I see someone doing well, I don’t want to tear them down.” She leaned in. “I want to work harder so I can get there, too.”
“That’s the difference between you and me. I want the defensive line to flatten them.”
She flushed when she realized she’d been talking as though there was some correlation between her career and his. “I didn’t mean to get so earnest.”
“No apology necessary. I just had to be honest about myself.”
She thought about everything she’d watched him do in the last few days. All the small gestures, his vulnerability to his parents, his protectiveness toward Trevor. All the fame and adulation hadn’t warped the bedrock integrity of the man. “You don’t see yourself very clearly.”
It struck him again that she viewed him differently than others did. “You deal with some selfish, demanding people as clients,” he said. “How do you keep from getting cynical?”
“My clients can be challenging, but they’re also appreciative of my efforts. I like working in a residential building instead of a hotel because I get to know them, their likes and dislikes, which makes it easier to do a good job. I’ve grown fond of many of our residents.”
He felt a strange twinge of jealousy at the warmth in her voice. Since he never used the building’s concierge services, he knew he wasn’t included in that group. “What about your boss?”
“Orin’s a necessary evil. Our shifts don’t overlap much, so he doesn’t bother me.” Her full lips twisted and her shoulders went rigid. “All right, so coming to work for him might have been a choice I regret. But the Pinnacle, well, the name says it all. If I want to start my own concierge agency, it adds major credibility to my résumé.”
So she had her own ambitions. He wasn’t surprised. But Spindle bothered her more than she wanted to admit. “There must be other buildings as high-end as the Pinnacle where the boss isn’t such a scumba—er, jerk. He tried to make you look bad in front of me and Trevor.”
She finished chewing her oyster before meeting his eyes. He could see her making the same decision he had: to be truthful. “I don’t know why he dislikes me so much. I’ve never done anything to provoke that.”
“I’m guessing the clients like you better than him and he knows it. Which takes us right back to what we were talking about earlier.”
“He could get rid of me if he would stop trying to ruin my chances of getting another position.” She went still. “You’re too easy to talk to.”
A flicker of gratification banished his jealousy. He sat back in the chair and wished he hadn’t when pain wrapped around his rib cage. He swiped the champagne glass off the table and finished the remainder. “So you’re looking for a new job?”
Her slim shoulders lifted and fell on a sigh. “I have a shot at head concierge for a new luxury condominium uptown, but I need Orin’s reference.”
“What about a recommendation from someone else?”
“There are some colleagues who would help me out, but it wouldn’t carry the same weight, especially when Orin is running a smear campaign right now.”
Now he understood the tension in her shoulders. “What’s he smearing you about?”
She looked away. “Just general incompetence. The worst part is that he’s sabotaging things that I’ve set up for clients.” When she met his eyes again, hers were lit with indignation. “Making me look bad is one thing, but deliberately making our residents unhappy is something no concierge should do.”
Despite her sincerity, he could tell she was trying to deflect him from the smear campaign. Spindle must be using the newspaper photo Miranda had mentioned to stir up trouble for her. “Is it against the concierge code to date a client?”
The champagne sloshed in her glass as she started. “No-o-o-o, not really.”
“But Spindle doesn’t like it, so he’s making your working life hell.”
Yet here she was, in a killer dress that made him want to unwrap it from her body and eat oysters off her bare skin. He liked her guts, and he really liked what it said about her feelings toward him.
She squared her shoulders and picked up her fork with a determined air. “Let’s talk about something more interesting. Have you sent a document to the Morgan yet? I’m curious to know what you chose.”
“My brother started this, so how about I write you a recommendation?” He owed her that much. “You said using my name would get you anything in New York City.”
Her lips parted on a sharp inhale. For a moment he saw hope flare in her eyes, but then she shook her head, making the thick, glossy waves of her dark hair ripple. “The problem started well before your brother’s issue. That was just something Orin thought he could leverage.”